Bakerella Bust!

I'm sure many of you are familiar with the Bakerella Blog, if you're not you must check out the site, it is adorable. She makes all kinds of these "Cake Pops" that are so sinkin' cute that I was inspired to try it myself. It didn't go over well. The "cake pop" is a whole baked cake crumbled up then mixed with a can of cream cheese (or whatever) frosting, then rolled into balls and dipped in chocolate. These were my problems...
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First of all, the batter was really sticky. I think I made the balls too big, or didn't let them chill for long enough because they fell off the sticks into the chocolate leaving little brown specs in my nice yellow chocolate. Then after I dipped them, the chocolate ran down the sticks and it was hard to make the chocolate smooth... I don't know how she does it. I also bought some black decorator gel instead of using the edible ink pen as recommended, and it was really hard to work with. Just buy the pen, it will be better. I intended to do the "smiley face" ones because they looked the easiest, but I tried one of the "baby chick" ones too because it's Easter season...

I think it looks like a platypus... or something.

These are kinda cute...

And Thank You for shopping at Wal-Mart


Sadly... even the flavor wasn't what I was expecting...

I'm not giving up though.
I will live to "Cake Pop" another Day.

This weekend...

I dare say that summer is here! We had a great weekend at home working around the house and yard. I went out to run errands, and at 3 stores in a row I had no lines! At Sam's Club I walked by a register right as she opened and avoided the crazy lines there. I went to Star Nursery, and a lady flagged me up to the "contractor only" counter to I avoided the line there... even at Wal-Mart the same thing happened! It was amazing! The weather was beautiful and I had Matchbox 20 blaring in the car... it was great. And one more amazing thing... That morning we took the cover off the pool after it had been covered up all winter long and I took a water sample to the pool store to get it checked. Ususally they give you a huge list of things that you "need" to buy and chemicals that you "need" to add, but not us. Our pool water was perfect! I don't need to buy or add anything! We are open for business! Look for a Beelsey Pool Party in the near future.





We also worked on the garden. I have actually started another blog for the garden as not to bore you with the constant garden updates.. You can see that blog here. It's filling up and looks great. I can't wait to pick veggies!

CANStruction

Every year as part of Architecture Week there is a CAN-struction competition where local Architects and Engineers build things out of canned food that will then be donated to feed the hungry. James' company enters every year, and for the second year in a row they have won for "Structural Ingenuity". They built 3 cacti (is that right... I know it's not cactuses). It was at the Fashion Show Mall on Las Vegas Boulevard on the elevated "catwalk". They spent most of the previous night setting it up. Good Job YWS Architects!

Only one guy did the "cactus" pose.

Happy Easter!

This year we spent Easter weekend in St. George Utah. My mom's family has a big picnic and egg hunt that is always so much fun. Part of my family came up too and it was so great to see them. The weather was a little yucky so the picnic was held inside. We had family fro Salt Lake, Cedar City, Santa Clara, and of course Mom Dad Cindy and Lisa from California.

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Cindy and Jack enjoying some cookies...

Every year my Aunt Jill puts together all kinds of containers full of candy and everyone gets to guess how many peices are in it. My Uncle Hans who is an accountant thinks he gets every one right every time. James actually won two!

These are easter eggs that are wrapped in grass and flowers while they are raw, then boiled in onion shells or red roots which dyes them and cooks them at the same time. They are very beautiful.

Grandma and Grandpa before church

Cindy, Me, Dad, Mom, Lisa

Happy Easter from the Beesley's!

Monster Roses!

We have 3 rose bushes in front of our house, and I don't know what we have been feeding them, but they are huge!

Our Garden

James and I have been working on a garden. It is on the side of the back yard that used to be a dog run. Now it is onions, tomatoes, corn, cucumber, bok choy, parsley, chives, cilantro and strawberries... so far. This is just a starter garden, we have lots of room to expand once we see how it goes. The wind is blowing like crazy right now. Hopefully it all survives!

Laura's Casino Opening!

Ok, so it's not actually MY casino, but it's one that I've been helping to design and build for the last 18 months. It is "Indiana Live" in Shelbyville Indiana. We did the entire casino, plus a Maker's Mark Steakhouse, Nascar Grill, High Limit Gaming and Lounge, Poker Room, Night Club, Casino Cage, Rewards club, public restroms and the Gold and Platinum High Limit Lounges. It was a huge job and a little rough at times, but it turned out beautiful! and the client was thrilled. Everyone was so complimentary to us and all of our hard work.

There were 4 of us on the team, and 2 my bosses. For the last couple of months i've been going out to Indiana at least every two weeks, if not every week. There's a lot of pictures, but there's so much to show!!

This is the exterior taken from the freeway.

These are all pictures of the main casino area.

The Cleo Design Team (minus the Bosses Ann and Ken)

James got to come too which made everything that much better.

All of the above pictures are the Maker's Mark Steakhouse. It turned out really beautiful and we even got to eat dinner there with the Architects and the Lighting Designers.

The facade of the Casino Cage

Public Restrooms

The Nascar Grill

Mosaic Night Club

Platinum Lounge

Gold and Platinum Club Lobby

Gold Club